The thin line between love and hate
by jwk22
Summary: He was a boy. She was a girl. Can it be anymore obvious?
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

Katniss Everdeen hated Wednesdays.

She'd never really understood why. It seemed to stem from a multitude of reasons – the most serious being that it was on a Wednesday six years ago that she lost her father forever and the most trivial being that she had triple English on a Wednesday afternoon.

In particular she hated this Wednesday.

She knew that the thick, crisp layer of snow that had fallen while she had been suffering through English would make her late for work. She really didn't need that right now – her boss Alma Coin hated tardiness and Katniss was one black mark away from being fired.

Katniss hated working the evening shift at the 24 hour diner, she hated the fact that she would get home late and then have to start working on her stupid English essay and she hated that, without a doubt, she would be frozen numb by the cold because in her rush that morning, she'd forgotten to grab her coat.

Yeah, she hated Wednesdays.

Infact the only thing that trumped her hatred for Wednesdays was her hatred for Peeta Mellark.

Katniss Everdeen despised Peeta Mellark.

* * *

**So I've thought about writing this story for ages and am finally doing it! This is just a cheeky prologue so bear with for the real action. Also I am English but am trying to write this story set in America so if there are any mistakes, just let me know.**

**So yeah, let me know what you think and whether it's worth my time to continue! x**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1: In which we learn why Katniss hates Peeta

She despises him from the tips of his curly, blonde hair to the double knots on his black sneakers.

At present he's reading out the part of Romeo from the play Romeo and Juliet that they're studying at the moment.

"Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."

Some of the girls in the class, actually the majority of the girls in the class are staring at him in unabashed adoration, watching his plump, pink lips shape the words of Romeo and pretending that it's them personally that he's speaking the words to.

She taps her pencil against the edge of her desk in exasperation; and glances down at her phone to check the time. It's twenty past 3 and she needs to be at work for 4 – it's usually a 20 minute drive but with the snow it could easily take 40 minutes. Bollocks. She glances back up and finds Peeta's startling blue eyes on her.

He smirks at her as though he knows what she's thinking and then continues to read but lengthening his words and exaggerating every syllable. Her eyes shoot towards the clock at the same time as his do and then his cerulean blue eyes are back on her. She frowns angrily and as her frown deepens, his smirk widens, his lip curling. Damn it, she's definitely going to be late now. She wants to punch that smirk clean off his smug face.

* * *

When the bell goes, she's the first to dash out of the classroom and is in her old, dilapidated red truck before the rest of the student body has even realised that the bell's gone. She turns the heating on as high as it will go and is just pulling out of her parking spot when a new, shiny, dark green truck pulls in front of her, effectively blocking her in.

She growls and smacks the steering wheel with the palms of her hands. A girl with long, curly blonde hair and wearing a tight jumper and high-heeled boots that are dangerous in this snow struts to the driver's seat of the truck.

_"Oh for fuck's sake Glimmer!"_ Katniss thinks and then the window rolls down and she discovers who the driver is. She should have fucking known.

Peeta Mellark rests his arm on the edge of the window as he leans out of the truck to talk to Glimmer. Katniss can't hear what they're saying and she couldn't really care less. She just needs this asshole to move out of her way. She slams her fist down hard on the horn. To Katniss' amusement, Glimmer jumps and is turning around to glare at Katniss when Peeta grasps her face in his hands and pulls her towards him. The next moment his tongue is in her mouth and Katniss watches in horror as Peeta Mellark pretty much sucks the face off Glimmer Lopez. Or at least that's what it looks like anyway. Katniss doesn't have much experience in that department, not apart from a failed date with Gale and a few drunken snogs with Darius.

The minute hand on the clock is inching towards half past 3 and Katniss is furious. There is no way she's getting fired just because Peeta fucking Mellark can't keep it in his pants. She presses her horn again and the couple in front of her breaks apart. Glimmer presses another kiss to Peeta's lips before walking away, with a glare directed towards Katniss. Katniss rolls her eyes and snorts, like she gives a fuck what Glimmer Lopez thinks.

Her eyes lock with Peeta's and she narrows them, wondering whether she could just press down on the accelerator and ram his truck out of her way. They stare at each other for a few achingly long seconds before he has the audacity to wink at her and then shifts his truck into gear and drives off.

* * *

Even though the snow is coming down thicker now, she makes it to work just as the clock is striking four. Alma Coin calls her into her office in the back of the diner just after Katniss has clocked in.

"You get lucky today, Miss Everdeen. And you of all people should know that I have no patience for tardiness. One more mistake and you're out!"

Katniss balls hers fists by her sides and tries not to retort. She may hate this job but she needs it and she's not going to give Alma Coin the satisfaction of firing her.

* * *

It's about 10pm by the time the diner starts to quieten down and as Katniss is wiping the tables of her section, she thinks again of her hatred for Peeta Mellark. He was an asshole all the time but that stunt he'd pulled today was unforgivable. How dare he try and make her late for work!

Her hatred towards him isn't unjustified; Mellark has been rude, cocky and annoying towards her for the best part of a decade now. It all started in primary school when they were playing 'Pin the tail on the donkey' and he decided to cut off the bottom half of her braid to use as the tail. She, a tender five-year-old at the time, had promptly turned round and punched him straight on the nose, with enough force to break it. Since then they'd been sworn enemies.

He was arrogant, he was crude and he was a man slag. And it would seem he had nothing better to do with his time than pick on her. It didn't make sense to her: she was practically a loner with only a small group of close friends, she didn't socialise, preferring instead to work long hours at the diner to make sure she could pay the bills, she kept herself to herself and didn't bother anyone. He was the complete opposite and was one of the popular kids: he was on the wrestling team, had tons of girls hanging off his arm and could down a beer keg like nobody's business. Why did he bother with annoying her?

Her fingers scraped against the tabletop and she stopped what she was doing, realising that she'd been scrubbing so hard the table practically shone.

Eugh, why was she even wasting time thinking about Peeta Mellark? She had too much else to focus on right now, she wasn't going to let Peeta Mellark bother her anymore.

* * *

**Can't decide whether to do only Katniss' point of view or whether to have both her's and Peeta's. What do you think? Would you prefer to know both sides of the story? x**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2: In which we learn abit more about Peeta Mellark

"Harder Peeta, yeah right there!"

Peeta looked at the blonde girl squealing and writhing beneath him as he thrust into her and wondered when he had started to find her so irritating. Her high-pitched voice was giving him a headache and her huge breasts which had felt so good before now looked definitely fake as they bounced around on her chest.

He didn't care that she wasn't going to come, he'd had enough. He pumped his hips twice and then emptied himself into the condom, before pulling out of her. Her shocked face gazed up at him, her eyes wide as though she couldn't believe what he'd just done.

He quickly removed the condom and tied it before pulling his jeans back up and fastening them. His head was swimming and he needed his nicotine fix now. With shaking hands, he pulled a cigarette out of his back pocket and lit up, smiling to himself as he took the first puff.

"What the fuck Peeta?!"

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, trying to rid himself of his headache.

"If you don't like it Glimmer, you know where the door is," he replied, motioning with his head towards the door of his truck. She exhaled angrily, tugged her clothes back on and told him to go fuck himself before sliding out of the truck.

* * *

Peeta stayed in the back of his truck in the parking lot chain-smoking his way through his pack of 20 for as long as he could. When he reached the end of his last cigarette, he dropped the extinguished stub onto the floor of his truck and shifted it into gear. Glancing at the clock, he realised how late it was and he silently cursed himself for not going home sooner. He knew that his mum would be furious by the time he got home and he didn't want to be on the receiving end of her barbed tongue tonight. He just thanked God that he was physically larger than her so at least she couldn't hit him anymore

He hated his mother and for good reason. She took every opportunity that she could to criticise him - his baking, his artwork, his schoolwork - and he couldn't recall a single compliment she had given him. She doted on his two older brothers and treated him like the dirt beneath her feet. He knew why, it was because he was the son that should have been a daughter. When his mother had gotten pregnant with him, there had been complications and the doctor had warned that this would be her last pregnancy. This was her last chance to have a daughter and instead she got Peeta. She detested him for it.

When he was younger, he had regularly tried to seek her approval but as the years passed and more bones were broken and the bruises flourished on his pale skin, he stopped caring about what she thought and instead started to resent her. It didn't matter anyway because he knew, without a doubt, that he was his dad' favourite son. Well it hadn't mattered until his dad had up and left in the middle of the night last summer with no note or reason as to why he had left.

Peeta gripped the steering wheel tighter and shook his head to dispel the thoughts of his father. He didn't want to think about him anymore. He had made his choice when he walked out of Peeta's life and left him with his witch of a mother. He was just a distant memory now.

* * *

"Yo! Peet! Over here!"

The loud shout came from the other end of the canteen and as Peeta looked up, he saw his best friend Finnick Odair waving his arm so enthusiastically in the air he almost knocked over a girl walking past behind him. Peeta chuckled to himself and made a beeline towards the table that Finnick was sat at along with Johanna, Thom and Delly. He plonked his tray down next to Finn and slid into the chair before picking up his baloney sandwich and starting to eat.

"So anyway then Clove slapped Cashmere in the face and called her a slut for sleeping with Gloss!"

Peeta tried to tune into what Delly was talking about but realised he had no idea.

"What's this?" he questioned before realising he didn't actually care.

"Just some boring gossip that Delly finds interesting and the rest of us find as dull as dishwater," Johanna replied with a wink towards Delly.

Delly huffed and begin to stab at her salad with her fork, she speared a piece of chicken and ate it before replying, "Well you won't want to know the gossip I have about the new girl then I guess."

"No actually, I'd rather you told us all about her and bored us all to tears," Johanna drawled sarcastically. Delly rolled her eyes, used to Johanna's antics, before telling them anyway.

"Her name's Annie Cresta, she's in my history class, she's from North Carolina, she likes to swim and she's.."

"Beautiful." The whispered word came from Finn and they all turned to look at him in astonishment but he didn't acknowledge any of them. His eyes were gazing off into the distance set on someone across the canteen. The four of them scoured the room with their eyes to see what had captivated him.

"Oh there she is, sitting over there with Rue and Katniss!" Delly beamed at them and sent them a quick wave which Annie returned with a small smile. "Wait, Finn, is that who you were staring at?"

Finnick nodded his head eagerly, "I think I'm in love Dells," he said wistfully, his gaze still firmly set upon Annie. Johanna turned back around and snorted.

"Give me a break Finn, you've been 'in love' with every girl in this damn school."

"Except for your lovely self Johanna," he retorted cheekily before his voice turned serious,"I need to get to know her though, this is for real. Help me?"

She sighed and looked at the rest of the table for help - Delly shrugged her shoulders, Thom was too busy eating and Peeta just sent her a wry smile before returning his attention to his sandwich. He was used to Finnick acting like this over a girl, the novelty would wear off in a few days.

"Fine, tell you what, I'll invite her to my pool party this weekend, there will be lots of booze and you'll be half-naked, how can she resist ey?"

Finnick leaned over the table and wrapped his arms around Johanna, half-pulling her out of her chair. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I owe you one, big time!"

* * *

At the end of the day, Johanna was waiting for a ride home whilst Peeta was shoving some books into his locker when Finnick sauntered over and made a puppy dog face at Johanna. "Did you ask her yet?" he pestered.

"Jeez Finn, get a grip, yes I asked her after lunch. Annie, Rue and Katniss will all be attending my party on Friday."

Peeta's movement faltered as he registered what Johanna said.

"What?" he asked.

She looked up at him with a confused expression on her face.

"What do you mean, what?"

"Did you just say Katniss Everdeen was coming to your party? Why the fuck did you invite her Jo? You know how much she hates me!"

"Well excuse me Blondie! There was no way I could invite Rue and Annie and not invite her! Plus she might bring Tall, Dark and Handsome with her," Johanna licked her lips.

"I'm pretty sure her and Gale are together," Peeta snapped, running his hand through his hair in frustration. He had been looking forward to this party for weeks and now it had been ruined.

"Damn it," Johanna grumbled, "Ohwell she's still coming, now stop being a baby and suck it up Mellark. You can be civil to her for one fucking night."

The thing was, Peeta thought to himself as he lay on his bed later that night, he didn't think he could.

* * *

**This was abit of a filler chapter. I just wanted to give you some of the reasonings as to why Peeta is such an asshole. He's not like the Peeta in the books on the surface, he's angrier and meaner but I promise you he has a heart of gold underneath. Next up is the party, alot more Peeta/Katniss action and possibly some cheeky smut. Stay tuned! x**


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